


5 Conversations Rex And Obi-Wan Did Not Have (and one they did)

by alyyks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, GFY, M/M, episodes aftermaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five conversations that could have been, after events and battles. Five conversations that never were, and the one that was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Conversations Rex And Obi-Wan Did Not Have (and one they did)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norcumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/gifts).



> This started with Norcumi's prompt of "The feels might kill me, but does (Rebels!Era?) Obi-Wan and Rex work with ❝ When you walk in here, you make me hope. Hoping is bad for me, so do not come back here unless you are back for good. ❞ ? ^_^;" and it snowballed from there, as it does. 
> 
> Beta by [imjz](http://imjz.tumblr.com/), wrangler extraordinaire of grammar gone wild. All remaining mistakes are my own.

1.

**In orbit around Umbara, half a rotation after the Republic troops took over**

In any other circumstances, Rex would have been happy to see Obi-Wan at his door. This—Obi-Wan showing up at the door during the off-shift and letting the mantle of General off his shoulders, Rex wearing only his bottom blacks and the tunic of his red fatigues—promised a respite from the fighting if only for a few hours. It had been safety and intimacy, only a few days ago. Now? Now it was electricity all along Rex’s raw nerves, liquid tibanna gas on the fire of his indirect anger.

“May I?”

For a second, Rex considered closing the door in Obi-Wan’s face. He had wanted to stay with his brothers, but after his conversation with Fives and his duties of Captain taken care of, he was well aware he was not fit to be in anyone’s company. He wanted time to be angry, to feel guilt and horror, without inflicting it on anyone else.

Rex stepped aside, retreating toward his bunk and the armor he had spread there to try to clean, to try to give his hands something to do. Obi-Wan came in, and stopped a couple steps into the room, just enough to trigger the automatic slide shut.

Obi-Wan held his eyes. “I should have known.”

Rex broke the eye contact—to not act on his first instinct and lash out at Obi-Wan physically. His hands curled in fists. “How? How could you—you were not in charge of the 501st. The handover to Krell was not out of the ordinary. Nothing that— nothing that happened can not also be put at my feet.”

“None of what happened was your fault, Rex.”

“So it’s not my fault I transmitted orders to my men, to my _brothers_ , that were set to deliberately kill them? So it’s not my fault I did not listen to Fives, to Jesse, to Hardcase, soon enough? So it’s not my fault I trusted Krell to do his job properly as if he was y—”

Rex turned away, aware that his anger and distress were loud around him, even without the Force. He took two steps, turned around, took two steps. “I wanted to shoot him. I didn’t, but I wanted to. I wanted him dead for all the brothers he killed. If Dogma had not taken the shot— I would have. It should have been me.”

“You would be in the brig instead of Dogma, if that had been the case. And… given the realities of politics intruding, I have little doubts your execution would be called for.”

Rex stopped his pacing, facing the wall. He didn’t ask _why_ , he didn’t ask _who_ and _what_. Put a helmet on him and all too often he became invisible—same for all his brothers—but that did not make him deaf and blind to what was going on. Since the Citadel, there had been whiffs of changes; the bad kind. He was Skywalker’s second in command, as was Ahsoka, and Skywalker was a sort of protégé of the Chancellor: target the Chancellor, target Skywalker, target _him_. “Is that where we’re at? Fighting on two fronts?”

He heard Obi-Wan sigh. “Not… openly, yet.”

He clenched his jaw. “What about Dogma? Will my brother be killed for General Krell's Fall?”

Obi-Wan’s voice was much more assured in that answer: “He’ll have a court-martial. I’ll be doing my best to make it will be taken care of properly—this is not exactly a situation that was prepared for. I’ll make sure he gets reassigned, and not sent back to Kamino or worse. Moreover…” Obi-Wan sighed. “I’d much rather talk to you, rather than to your back.”

Rex slowly faced Obi-Wan, crossing his arms across his chest. Obi-Wan’s smile did not reach his eyes.

“Dogma did what any Jedi would have done in his place—the Order has an obligation to fight, and kill, Fallen beings too far gone for help, and the Sith.”

“He’s no Jedi.”

“All the same, the army was placed under the command of the Jedi Order: in no way did that invalidate the prior missions of the Order. My position as Councilor is that Dogma acted according to his orders, in harrowing circumstances, and that the Order is most certainly at fault to not have acted on the casualties left by Krell’s command and to have let his Fall go unchecked.”

Rex clenched his jaw on his reply—anger here, at Obi-Wan, was not the answer. He still wanted someone, something, to pay. The very thought was running contrary to all his training, to all his experience; and when he closed his eyes all he could see was the slack face of the 212th brother whose helmet he had taken off, all he could see was the trail of that single tear on Waxer’s cheek.

The discussion he had had with Fives on the ground came back to him. He opened his mouth before he could think about it, before he could talk himself out of it: “This war—it’ll end. But what happens to us then?”

Obi-Wan did not avert his eyes, did not pull on the cloak of the General. “I don’t know.”

 

2.

**Onboard the Wolfpack’s ships, in route back to Krios, several hours after departing the Kadavo system**

“You are not used to thinking of yourself and others as not a person.”

The matter-of-fact tone Rex delivered his line with startled Obi-Wan. Hearing the sentence, really hearing it, cut right into him.

Rex was only wearing a new bodysuit, the disguise he had used to infiltrate Zygerria and had spent days in was nowhere in sight. Obi-Wan found himself hoping he had burned it.

“You can take the physical pain but not the—” Rex trailed off.

“The negation of self?”

The frown temporarily cut a line between Rex’s brows. “That’d imply there was a self to begin with.”

They were the only two in the officers’ mess. Plo had came by shortly after they had entered hyperspace, then had wandered back out when one of his men had come to ask for help with the colonists. Anakin and Ahsoka were down there too, in between the general mess hall and the multiple hastily set up places to sleep. Obi-Wan should have been there too; but he wasn’t. He felt—he didn’t know how he felt, and meditation had proved itself elusive. ‘Rattled’ seemed to be a good word. His tunics, the same torn ones he had been wearing for several days, itched against the bruises and lashes and burns he had received.

But Rex was right. Physical pain, he could take. The denial that he and the ones around him were sentient beings… the parallels were obvious, for all it wasn’t talked about. Slick throwing accusations of slavery in their faces hadn’t been so long ago—and he had been right.

Even in the Council, for all it was their mandate to uphold the ideals of the Republic and slavery most certainly was not part of those, they seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the army they had so readily accepted to command had no choice but to be in there. The clones had been made for that army: what choice and freedom was there in that?

Every trooper, every sentient being in the army who had been cloned from Jango Fett, had no official existence outside of it, and there was nothing put in place to give them one, for them to have rights and protections. The Senate had all but washed their hands of all of them, content to let Jedi and clones be killed for interests the Senators would not bleed for.

Rex sat right next to him, his mug smelling of tea: an incongruity, Rex much preferred caf to tea.

He nudged the mug toward Obi-Wan. “You should let medical have a look at you.”

“They are busy enough as it is. I have time.” Obi-Wan picked up the tea, nodding at Rex in thanks. The surface of the liquid reflected the lights strips of the ceiling. “They killed people because of me.”

“They killed people and it’s on their heads. Not you. They used who you are against you, to break you.”

Obi-Wan sighed. The tea was strong and almost too sugary. He knew from previous occasions that both Anakin and Cody were not above crushing ration cubes in tea to make him eat, attempting to mask the non-taste by adding almost too much sugar, and clearly they had shared their trick with Rex. Obi-Wan honestly probably needed it, at the moment.

“I am still responsible for those actions, both because of what I am and because of the oaths I took.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, careful to not touch the edges of the bruise around his eye. “And still I break some of those oaths every day,” he said, turning his head to look at Rex’s eyes, his hand covering Rex’s.

Rex stiffened, “General—”

“No, not—not us,” Obi-Wan curled his fingers around Rex’s palm. “Never us. But not having a choice whether or not to be there, what freedom is there in that?”

Rex intertwined his fingers with Obi-Wan’s, and sighed. “I’d lie if I said it’s not something that came up. I’d rather not think about it right this moment.” He stood up, tugging Obi-Wan in his wake. “For now, you need a shower, and we have access to a private ‘fresher.”

3.

**On-route to the Outer Rim sieges from Coruscant, Open Circle Fleet**

Every moment, every minute where they did not have to be Captain and General was a relief. Each one of those instants was rarer and harder to find than the next, even with Cody clearly helping some of those moments happen.

The war was devolving into sieges. Rex had a bad feeling about this—had had a bad feeling about everything since Tup’s impossible acts, since Fives’ incomprehensible death, since Kix’s disappearance. Since, if he was honest with himself, Umbara.

“You’ve been quiet,” Rex said at the door of Obi-Wan’s berth.

Obi-Wan raised his head from the datapads and flimsiplasts documents littering his desk. He looked like he needed a break. “There hasn’t been much to talk about.”

Rex stepped in, the door sliding shut behind him. “Liar.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes in a humorless smile, pushing away from his desk, a clear sign he was done with that work for now. “Yes.”

Rex removed his helmet, putting it on one of the built-in shelves of the room. He had three hours, and unless Obi-Wan indicated otherwise, he intended to take full advantage of those. Once on the ground, once out there, he had a feeling there would be no time for anything else than the business of war.

Obi-Wan stood up, walked to him—and helped him unlatch his armor. The three hours were a go.

 

Later, they were lying side by side in the almost too-small bunk. Obi-Wan couldn’t seem to be able to keep his hands off of Rex, tracing idle patterns on his skin, raising goosebumps in their wake. Rex could feel the knots in his bad shoulder, all the tension he hadn’t been able to relax in rotations, loosening further under the touch. He groaned in appreciation. Obi-Wan chuckled, and the fingers on his skin turned to kisses.

The kisses turned to Obi-Wan pressing his face to Rex’s skin and hiding there.

“You asked me, what would happen after the end of the war—what would happen to you and your brothers,” the words came muffled. “I am not sure if this war is going to end in a definitive manner anymore. There has been too much instability: there will always be something to rebuild, something to protect.”

“That could take decades,” Rex said.

“If not longer, yes.”

“That’s not the only thing you’re thinking about.”

Obi-Wan breathed out against Rex’s body. He finally rolled to his stomach, resting his head on his folded hands so that his mouth was hidden. “Rex… do not ask me more. I refuse to lie to you.”

Rex turned on his side to face him. “How much of whatever this is is going to come back to bite us?”

“None of it if we can help it.”

“Sounds like something that’ll blow in our faces at the first occasion.”

“Yes. Very messily and with dire implications.” Obi-Wan sighed. “For the record, I think the Council’s stance on this is wrong. We’ve been jerked around like puppets since the beginning of this war.”

Rex did not trace idle patterns on Obi-Wan’s scarred arms—he rested his hand there, feeling the life under it, the pulse of blood. How easy it would have been to ignore who they were and where they were.

“I can’t prepare for a battle without information,” Rex said.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. “I know. And I dearly wish you’ll never have to fight this one.” He sighed. “No-one, none of your brothers, can know, not yet.”

Rex nodded.

Obi-Wan sat up, crossing his legs. The sheet that had been the last thing remaining on the bed was shoved to the side, and in the sudden straightening of his spine, Rex could see the Councilor, sitting in the space his lover’s body’s occupied.

“Our latest investigation into the matter revealed several things: Master Sifo-Dyas, unbeknownst to the Order, was sent on a mission by Chancellor Valorum with one of the Chancellor’s aides. The Council sent him to Felucia while this was going on, to arbitrate a conflict—and it’s most certainly where he died. The aide was still alive, and given his words, Sifo-Dyas was probably killed to allow for another to use his identity and—

“When I went to Kamino three years ago, I was assured Sifo-Dyas had been the one to commission the army, on behest of the Order and the Republic. When I talked to Fett during that same visit, he told me he had been recruited for the army by a man named Tyrannus. And as it comes to, Lord Tyrannus is the name Dooku uses as Sith.”

Rex could see why he couldn’t tell his brothers. But his first thought, his immediate reaction was: _my general must be loving this, both the truth and having to sit on this._ He almost laughed that this was his first thought. Then all the implications crashed in. “We were never commissioned by the Republic.”

“All evidence points to the contrary. Despite the last few years, the Republic is not in the habit of keeping armies—nor of keeping slaves,” and Obi-Wan’s voice was twisted and Rex could not recognize the emotions there.

The three hours were almost up.

 

4.

**Polis Masa, less than a rotation after Order 66 and the rise of the Empire**

“We failed. I failed.”

Rex was sitting behind him. Obi-Wan could hear him breathing; the slight hitch of it was a leftover of sedatives and the wooziness that accompanied them. Rex’s chip was out—same as the four clones who had come with him. The medics of Polis Masa had worked fast on Rex’s word before the chips could kick in and they searched the station for the Jedi they knew were present on the station.

Obi-Wan did not dare turn around and look at him.

“There’s no way to win a rigged game. There’s no way to fail at one either,” Rex said, after a long moment. The echo of a conversation they had had months ago, when they thought the worst this would come to would be sieges and protracted fighting never quite resolving into anything, sounded in the buzzing silence between them.

“That’s—”

“You’re not responsible for every single thing happening in the galaxy, Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan huffed a laugh. It was better than thinking about things, than thinking about the friend who had died in the next room over, than thinking about the friend he had left for dead in the lava of Mustafar, than thinking about all the troopers dead, than thinking about the destruction and death in his home—

Strong, familiar arms came to hold him. It startled him, before he covered the hands crossing over his chest with his.

They held onto each other and shook, and breathed.

He heard Rex swallow, thickly. The hitch wasn’t just a leftover now, but—they could take a moment. He could take a moment, and know that the arms around him would hold him up, and know he could keep Rex up.

He saw Anakin, burning, screaming he hated him, when he closed his eyes. He saw Padmé crying in pain. He saw Jedi and clones alike sprawled on the floors of the Temple. He saw Cody—before his commander and friend shot him down.

He desperately needed to meditate.

They breathed.

“What comes next?” Rex finally asked.

Obi-Wan had lost track of how long they had stood like this, taking strength in each other’s presence. He sighed. “We can’t stay here much longer. And—”

“You don’t know how much you can tell me.” The embrace broke. “I understand.”

Rex retreated behind the face of the unflappable captain. Obi-Wan would have screamed if it would have helped any.

Meditation, and plenty of it. But even without it, even without paying attention to the screaming in the Force, there was something…

“Rex. You and your men should stick to Senator Organa.”

Rex’s answer was to raise an eyebrow.

Obi-Wan smiled faintly as the image of a young wild-haired child and Rex running after her faded. “Trust me, I have a good feeling about that.”

Rex had been smiling.

 

5.

**Somewhere at the galactic south edge of the Mid-Rim, three years after the fall of the Republic**

Rex turned around on the bunk when Obi-Wan got up.

Obi-Wan stretched, back popping and skin rippling over old and new scars. He picked up his clothes from where they had been discarded a few hours before. He did not turn to look at Rex, and Rex did not break the silence.

There was a certain finality in those movements, in this lack of sound.

This was it, then.

In a way, Rex had always known it’d come to this. When their paths crossed now, the bonds they had created during three years of war were still there—and in each other’s embrace they could forget their roles and be only Rex, only Obi-Wan. They were, however, both still bound by oaths that went beyond their individuality, beyond even the lifespan of the institutions that had taken those oaths.

Rex was sixteen—thirty-two—, a clone, an agent of the fledgeling Rebel Alliance, and not given to delude himself. In a few hours, he was to join Ahsoka for a recon set to take several months, to set up the seeds of cells and independent operatives, and hopefully to find more of his brothers.

Obi-Wan was a Jedi Master—if not the last Jedi Master in the known galaxy after Master Yoda had gone his way—, something of a ghost and a myth, a wanted man, sitting on the edges of the Alliance and working miracles. He would leave in a few minutes and vanish for months, if not years, on that self-appointed mission Rex was not supposed to know about. Only, Rex did know about it, and the knowledge that his General, his friend, would never know his kids, that Amidala—who had spoken for them—would never see her kids grow, ached. If Obi-Wan died, if he got his ass killed now that no brother could cover his six, Rex would never know.

Rex couldn’t remain bonded to an impossible hope.

He sat up, the covers pooling in his lap. Obi-Wan was almost completely dressed now.

“When you walk in here,” Rex said, his eyes on the battered belt that held Obi-Wan’s equally battered pants, “you make me hope. There's no place for false hope in my life, so do not come back unless you are back for good.” There. An impossible demand for an impossible hope—couched it as an ultimatum, leaving no escape.

“Rex…” That was not a protest. That was _regret._

He got up, standing to face Obi-Wan, naked. He held all the scars of the war, the scar of the chip that had robbed him and his of their minds, the traces of teeth and nails and welcomed bruises Obi-Wan had left him that night.

Rex reached for him, that arm’s span that separated them like a sector of space and just as heavy with potentials and nothingness.

Obi-Wan leaned into his palm. His face was tanned and wind-blown now, the lines at the corners of his eyes carved from grief and too little sleep. At the tip of Rex’s fingers, his hair had started to turn noticeably white.

“I love you,” Rex said. “And love is not enough.”

Their kiss lacked the urgency of the ones they had traded hours before. Again, a finality, again, a bond between them full of memories of stolen moments and broken rules—and always, duty. But like this, forehead to forehead—like this, Rex could say goodbye on his terms.

“May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan.”

“May it be with you too, Rex.”

 

+1

**Tatooine, several years after the rise of the Empire**

Rex did not like sand. It was hell on equipment, jammed blasters, and it got into everything and stayed there for ages. He could feel sand under his back teeth the moment he stepped off the ship.

The crew—Alliance-aligned, sneaky, (he liked the youngest kid, reminded him of Jesse, who had gone his own way to make cells and recruit two years ago)—split like nothing unusual was going on, without a wave back. They had made their goodbyes before the descent. That was…unexpectedly nice, the ability to say “Nice knowing you,” and leave, sure that you’d never see them again but without the inevitability of death on a battlefield.

There was still death. It wore white, and it did not move like his brothers anymore: hadn’t, for a long time.

Rex tugged the brim of his hood against the glare of the suns reflecting on the low buildings and snagged the end of his scarf to wrap it back in place over nose and mouth. Still tasted like sand. He’d eat a lot more of it soon, better get used to it.

The spaceport was every spaceport he had come across: loud, crowded, full of people one didn’t want to turn their back on—and wasn’t it one of the great ironies that he was one of those too, now.

He didn’t see any white armor on his way to the outskirts. Perhaps a good thing. Perhaps something to keep an eye and half a mind on. He certainly didn’t need all his attention on haggling for a speeder bike in half-way decent condition. Fixing the thing in the shade of the stand of a pallie seller took more time and attention that he’d wanted. One of the suns was a handspan from the horizon when he was done, and the other wasn’t far behind it.

The ship had to have been gone by now, back to Alliance business. They’d been good kids. They’d be alright.

The speeder started without a hitch. Rex smiled. A minute later, he was gone from Mos Eisley, desert wind in his face and Force-damned sand in his teeth.

 

He had coordinates to the place he was seeking but that was still the equivalent of looking for a rock in the desert. There wasn’t much to see anywhere; he was thankful the dominant colors were yellow-gold, ochre and a kind of beige that spoke of rock baked by the suns, instead of red and orange like Geonosis. He could still see that shit-show in his dreams, he did not need to see it during his waking hours.

He was so absorbed in looking for what he was expecting to see, a structure, a dome, some kind of building, that he almost ran into a vaporator. From there it was a bit easier, even with the light rapidly fading. The lowest sun was touching the horizon now.

There was a structure hiding in plain sight, between rocks much of the same size and color. Strategically, it looked well-defensible. A sound choice, in his opinion.

He left the speeder bike again the nearest wall and knocked at the door.

“Rex?”

Kenobi… had looked better.

Rex took goggles and scarf down, spat out some sand. “Good to see you too, General.”

Kenobi still looked like he had been hit in the head and left in the sun for too long. When he made a movement, it was to take a step back and leave his entryway open. Rex took it as an invitation. The threshold, mercifully, was a barrier not unlike the one of ships’ hangars opening on the void of space—nothing in, nothing out. He tapped the blasted sand and dirt out of his clothes as best he could before walking in.

Kenobi was still standing, looking poleaxed. He looked more tan than the last time Rex had seen him, years ago, and the lines at the corners of his eyes had deepened. Rex’s weren’t that far away either—he couldn’t remember how old Kenobi was, but physically they had to be pushing the same age.

“Kenobi? You doing ok?”

“To be perfectly honest,” and there he was, one arm crossed, the other hand stroking his chin, exactly like Rex remembered it, “I’m trying to figure out if I’m hallucinating you.”

“Hallucinating?”

Kenobi’s smile was far too small and sideway, the lines at his eyes crinkling, and Rex wanted to trace every one of them and memorize the difference in sensations under fingers and lips. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

That was enough of that. Rex crossed the space that still separated them; he stopped when Kenobi took a step back, his eyes a little too wild.

“I’m here,” Rex said, showing his empty hands. “I’m really here.”

Kenobi visibly swallowed. “What are you doing here?”

“The Alliance bigwigs, in all their wisdom, told me to go take a break, believe it or not. Then Wolffe kicked me out. Couldn’t stand the idea of not doing anything, so I brought you news. And… I missed you.”

Kenobi was staring at Rex’s hands, in reach—though they could have been on the other side of the system for all Kenobi seemed able to go for that distance.

“I’m not going to bite you—unless you ask nicely,” Rex said.

Kenobi huffed a laugh. “That’d be lovely,” he said. “Rex… I don’t think I could stand it if I touched you and there was nothing under my fingers.”

“Do you trust me?”

The response was immediate: “With my life.”

Rex took two steps and wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan’s shoulders. Obi-Wan stayed stiff as a rock for long minutes before he hugged him back, his hands making fists in the material of Rex’s jacket.

They stayed like that for a long time, long enough for the lights inside to kick into gear in answer to night finally falling, enough to feel strange untangling from one another.

“Hi Rex,” Obi-Wan finally said. “It’s good to see you.”


End file.
